Maliki blueprint unlikely to stop the violence

IRAQ: The 24-point reconciliation plan presented yesterday to parliament by Iraqi premier Nuri al-Maliki is unlikely to provide a political remedy for the violence afflicting his country.

The key provisions of the plan offer amnesty to insurgents who have not shed blood, call for the disarming and disbanding of militias, and propose the rehabilitation of former Baathists. All Mr Maliki's predecessors have tried and failed to achieve progress on these three critical fronts.

The amnesty offered to insurgents is ambiguous. While it promises pardons for those who have not committed "crimes and terrorist actions", it does not define specifically what this means or to whom the amnesty applies. The proposal speaks of pardoning insurgents now held in Iraqi and US prisons, but those still in the field cannot be expected to accept a vague proposal or trust the authorities to deliver at a time of growing anarchy and chaos.

The number of insurgents is estimated at 20,000, the vast majority former soldiers or army officers demobilised by the US in May 2003. These men will not give up their arms and surrender unless their safety can be guaranteed and they are offered employment. Neither can be assured. Former Iraqi officers, doctors, professors, lawyers, and civil servants are being kidnapped and killed by Shia death squads attached to the ministry of the interior and Shia political parties belonging to Mr Maliki's own parliamentary bloc.

Insurgents who turn themselves over to the authorities could be courting torture and death. There is also soaring unemployment, so insurgents coming in and accepting amnesty would join the ranks of the jobless.

All fighters belonging to al-Qaeda in Iraq, only 5-10 per cent of the total, have been excluded from the amnesty, even though some might qualify.

It would be a better policy to entice them to desert and accept amnesty. Although this group's star has fallen since the beginning of 2006, it continues to mount operations designed to stir Sunni-Shia tension and hostility.

Unless al-Qaeda is diminished, and its units are disarmed and disbanded, it will remain a serious threat. Mr Maliki and the US and Iraqi military do not seem to have a strategy for rooting out this movement which often serves as a vanguard to other insurgent groups.

Mr Maliki is in no position to deal with the militias which now dominate the scene and the militiamen who fill the ranks of the army and police.

The Kurds have flatly refused to disarm and disband the peshmerga, which they regard as their national army and police. This militia defends the region, provides a modicum of security and gives the two largest Kurdish parties, the Kurdish Democratic Party and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the muscle to deal with competitors.

The three Shia militias, the Badr Corps of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the Mahdi Army of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, and fighters attached to the Virtue party in the Basra area, also give parent parties the clout to keep them in power and extend their influence.

Consequently, deputies belonging to these parties, the three largest Shia factions in the largest parliamentary bloc, do not favour disbanding militias.

Finally, Shia politicians belonging to parties which were persecuted under the former regime flatly refuse reconciliation with members of the ousted Baath party, even though its lower and middle ranks were not decision-makers.

Shia parties also want to exclude ex-Baathists from jobs in the civil service, the police and the armed forces because these parties seek to give such posts to their own followers, even if they are not qualified. The health ministry, for example, is no longer functioning because it has been taken over by the supporters of Moqtada al-Sadr.

Because of Shia opposition, the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat reports that Mr Maliki regards the plan as an executive initiative which does not require the approval of parliament. Shia deputies are roundly protesting at his stance and condemning him for failing to observe the separation of powers and proper parliamentary procedure.